Shape memory polymer resonators as highly sensitive uncooled infrared detectors

Uncooled infrared detectors have enabled the rapid growth of thermal imaging applications. These detectors are predominantly bolometers, reading out a pixel’s temperature change due to infrared radiation as a resistance change. Another uncooled sensing method is to transduce the infrared radiation into the frequency shift of a mechanical resonator. We present here highly sensitive resonant infrared sensors, based on thermo-responsive shape memory polymers. By exploiting the phase-change polymer as transduction mechanism, our approach provides 2 orders of magnitude improvement of the temperature coefficient of frequency. Noise equivalent temperature difference of 22 mK in vacuum and 112 mK in air are obtained using f/2 optics. The noise equivalent temperature difference is further improved to 6 mK in vacuum by using high-Q silicon nitride membranes as substrates for the shape memory polymers. This high performance in air eliminates the need for vacuum packaging, paving a path towards flexible non-hermetically sealed infrared sensors

Radio-Frequency Characteristics of Ge-doped Vanadium Dioxide Thin Films with Increased Transition Temperature

Riyaz Mohammed Abdul Khadar, Matteo Cavalieri, Mihai Adrian Ionescu, Anna Krammer, Andrei Müller, Fatemeh Qaderi Rahaqi, Teodor Rosca, Andreas Schueler, Igor Stolichnov

This work investigates and reports on the radio-frequency (RF) behavior in the frequency range of 5 – 35 GHz of germanium-doped (Ge-doped VO2) vanadium dioxide thin films, deposited on silicon substrates via sputtering and pulsed laser deposition (PLD) with estimated Ge concentrations of 5 % and 5.5 %. Both films exhibit critical transition temperatures (Tc) of 76.2 and 72 °C, respectively, which are higher compared to that of the undoped VO2 which undergoes reversible insulator-to-metal phase transition at 68°C. Both types of Ge-doped films show low hysteresis (< 5 °C) in their conductivity versus temperature characteristics and preserve an high off-state DC-conductivities (corresponding to the insulating state of the phase change material) of 13 S/m, for the sputtered, and, 55 S/m, for the PLD deposited film, respectively. The DC on-state (corresponding to the conductive state of the phase change material) conductivity reaches 145,000 S/m in the case of the PLD film, which represents a significant increase compared to the state-of-the art values measured for undoped VO2 thin films deposited on identical substrates. In order to further understand the off-state dissimilarities and RF behavior of the deposited Ge-doped VO2 films, we propose an original methodology for the experimental extraction of the dielectric constant (ɛr) in the GHz range of the films below 60 °C. This is achieved by exploiting the frequency shift of resonant filters. For this purpose we have fabricated coplanar waveguide (CPW) structures incorporating ultra-compact Peano space filling curves, each resonating at a different frequency between 5 and 35 GHz on two types of substrates, one with the Ge-doped VO2 thin films and another one using only SiO2 to serve as reference. The reported results and analysis contribute to the advancement of the field of metal-insulator-transition material technology with high Tc for RF industrial applications.

2020

Radio-Frequency Characteristics of Ge-doped Vanadium Dioxide Thin Films with Increased Transition Temperature

Riyaz Mohammed Abdul Khadar, Matteo Cavalieri, Mihai Adrian Ionescu, Anna Krammer, Andrei Müller, Fatemeh Qaderi Rahaqi, Teodor Rosca, Andreas Schueler, Igor Stolichnov

2020